Malicia

Listen up, make way for the Mistress of Love! The beautiful Malicia has but one aim: to enslave the surliest of male souls who will not succumb to her charms. However, her poor shot might well cause a few problems, as her arrows of impassioned submission have a nasty habit of ending up in their owners’ behinds rather than in their hearts…

Malicia

Malicia

Listen up, make way for the Mistress of Love! The beautiful Malicia has but one aim: to enslave the surliest of male souls who will not succumb to her charms. However, her poor shot might well cause a few problems, as her arrows of impassioned submission have a nasty habit of ending up in their owners’ behinds rather than in their hearts…

Feminists are a thing of the past. Make way for the reign of Double X, XX power! For these hot-blooded women, men are nothing more than a means to satisfy their desires. The Pussycat revolution is here and they’ve got their claws out! And to gain influence in government circles, the Pussycats are quite prepared to strike below the belt…in more ways than one!

When I first saw this card, I instantly thought: Marina. Both are 7/5 with abilities that make a differential of 3 on a loss. However, "damage reduction" and "defeat: heal" are actually quite different. For one, heal's maximum potential is only reached on round 1, which kind of pidgeon-holes malicia into early round play. That's not to say that she isn't useful in the later rounds though because her solid stats are good enough to go for the win with. Secondly, heal doesn't prevent you from being KO'ed this round. Many decks' strategy revolves specifically on landing that 2HKO, and defeat: heal isn't going to help you out on the back end of one of those game plans. But if you are playing pussycats (especially in elo) and are worried about being KO'ed, I think you're doing something very wrong. Now, the reasons why "heal" is actually better than "damage reduction" may not be as obvious. Big damage reduction is weak versus +/- life cards while heal stands unaffected. Also, it is rendered worthless against small damage cards, while heal is again unaffected. Say you're facing a card like spiaghi and you really don't want to waste pills trying to beat it. With malicia, you can lose and still come out ahead by 2 life points (in the long run, if played on the first round). A card like marina or clover would only have these unfavorable choices: win and be +2 (thus wasting pills) or lose and be -1.

So that's my 2 cents on "defeat: heal" versus "damage reduction". After using malicia for a little while now, I have come to have mixed feelings about here as a card overall. She has been able to win me some battles, proving to be quite useful; but sometimes, she is a huge liability.

Let's talk about the good I've seen in her first. Honestly, there are a lot of smart UR players out there, who know that just because malicia is essentially a double defeat card, doesn't mean that I won't use any pills on her. They know that I could just as likely try to sneak her by for an easy 5 damage. Many a time, this knowledge has actually helped me out. I would say about 85% of the time, I used no pills on malicia and just went for the loss, but because of the anticipation that I "could" try to be sneaky, I caused opponents to pill a little bit more that they should have. On another note, I never had a problem with her maximum. Even in elo, where the heal abilities of cards like eggman and cherry are almost never fully activated because of the lower maximum. And even when paired with diana, still not any problems. What makes "poison" so much superior "heal" is that heal requires that you lose life for it to do anything, and if it is activated on a win you, by default, did not lose any life (barring an opponent like c wing or orlock or milena). For example: cherry needs the next card (assuming you use another pussycat) to do 7 damage to you for heal to even activate, and 8 damage for it to be fully activated..once (max 10 means you need to get down to 9 or 8 life points, which with starting life points of 14 means that they need to do 5 or 6 dmage + 2 if you reduce with a pussycat). Malicia, on the other hand does not have this problem because heal activates on a loss, not a victory. You'll take at least 1 damage while losing with her, which takes you to 13 (12 giving her full potential for the whole match), meaning that either: 1) you lose 1 more time during the match (likely) and her ability is at full potential..for the whole match or 2) you win all 3 of the next rounds, which means you probably won the match regardless. Ultimately, I found malicia to be a great mind-gamer whose ability is not counter-intuitive like many of its predecessors.

Now on to her flaws. The biggest one being: 7 unaided power. And when I say "unaided" I mean that neither her ability nor her bonus helps her to win battles. Whenever I needed malicia to be a winner, it was always an uphill battle. 7 is a solid number, but there are just so many cards out there who were made for crippling an unaided 7 power pill for pill. It came to the point where I found myself unable to ever really justify spending the pills to win with her. And because I also use clover (another natural loser) in my deck, the other two cards I drew pretty much had to be winners. It kind of seems like a waste to be using a big 4-star primarily to block. But that's the only real inconvenience that I experienced with malicia. I suppose you could say that the heal amount of 1 is quite low, but honestly, 2 would be OP.

I'm going to run a quick scenario here. Say you have this hand: malicia | diana | clover | lucy. Lose with malicia on round 1. If you just find a way to win with diana (not hard at all with her 8 power), your opponent needs to inflict 20 damage (22 depending on what kind of bonus lucy blocks) to beat you (5 cover from mailica + 5 cover from clover + 7 to cover the diana win + 2 or 4 cover from lucy). Amazing! That's what this card now allows you to do with pussycats.

PROS:
• 7 power is pretty decent for a ★ ★ ★ ★
• 5 damage is pretty decent for a ★ ★ ★ ★ as well
• Healing ability with a maximum of 15 ( Pretty high )
• If Malicia wins a round, your opponent will take 5 damage. If you don't, you will get the ability in + your opponent's damage is reduced to a minimum of 1. You will have a reward one way or another unless your opponent has Stop Opp. Ability and such.
• It is unpredictable, most of the time, to know what Malicia will do
• If all goes wrong, your opponent's damage is reduced
• She's a uncommon, so her price is cheaper than rares
• Excellent artwork by phalloide

CONS:
• ★ ★ ★ ★ isn't the lowest amount of ★'s
• You only get to heal 1 per turn. It could have been higher like 2...
• Cards like Ksendra will absolutely destroy her
• She can be preferred over by cards like Cherry
• No attack manipulation if you want to get that 5 damage in

Scale from 1 to 10:
8/10

Overall:
Malicia is a great card with a few flaws. She reduces the opponent's damage + heal 1 maximum 15 if you lose and if you win you will get 5 damage in. She even has nice stats! Despite her flaws, she is great one way or another. What a nice Pussycat card.

The Charlie Files
Name: Malicia
Member #44
Occupation: The Mistress of Love
Malicia's mission is clear as crystal: enslave the most perverted men in the city, with her charm, and a boat load of enchanted arrows. However she's a terrible shot, in one case she caused the man Clover was dating prior to joining our clan to break up with her on Valentine's Day. She, as well as Leela and Florida Jane participated in this years Miss Clint City, but Malicia placed second only short of getting enough votes to beat that slutty Huracan member. Sure we hate beauty pageants, but it was a good try, heck two years ago Cherry went into the running hoping she would be in the top 8, but that was dashed. And last year Diana was in the top 8, but like Malicia she placed second behind Lizbeth of the Piranas. Well that was my two cents about it.
Charlie

I have a healing deck with Brigit and Ditha and this card is by far one of the most useful I've ever owned 3 pilz and they have no idea that I'm gonna get them with a furious Noemi creating a 2HKO really useful worth 2,700 clintz plus her art is the best!